November 29, 12:46 p.m.: Framed below a seal skin umiak whaling boat, the sun edged itself above the southern horizon and lingered for just two hours and 24 minutes. On December 7, the sun will stay below the horizon and remain there for 28 days.

In 1958, under the direction of Edward Teller, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) devised a plan to detonate a series of nuclear devices 160 times the force of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. These bombs were to be exploded just 30 miles southwest of the Inupiat village of Point Hope, Alaska. Teller’s plan – if an action so dangerous and misguided can even be called such – was to blast out a harbor in this far north coastline. The United States government didn’t bother to tell the local residents of this scheme. Nor did they take into consideration that the land in question dId not belong to the United States government; it was and still is sovereign Inupiat territory.

Whale bones mark a sod igloo buried in snow in the ghost town of Old Tikigaq, which was abandoned in the mid 1970’s. Although the sun is only in the sky briefly in November, it is a glorious time of year. This is the November light we have been waiting for.

A caribou hunting party stumbled across AEC engineers and para-military personnel encamped at the mouth of Ogoturuk Creek, near Cape Thompson. That’s when the questions and the lies began.

Grass silhouetted against the southern sky just before dawn, the frozen sea stretching to the horizon near Point Hope, Alaska.

In the end, Teller’s heartless plan was stopped. The bombs were never detonated. The experiment to determine how much radiation local flora, fauna and humans could survive was never carried out.

This is a story of heroes. There was Howard Rock, the co-founder of the Tundra Times, a highly educated, literate Inupiat leader who wrote the first, insistent letters to the United States government demanding that this plan be immediately halted. There were the white scientists from the University of Fairbanks, Pruitt and Viereck, who raised their voices against the project, and in standing up for the Inupiat people and standing against the government were fired by University President, William Wood, who played a less noble role in this story. There were the millions of citizens in the United States and all over the world who were in the streets, protesting nuclear tests of this kind. And there are the people of Point Hope who stood up to the government then and who are still fighting to force the United States government to tell the whole story of Project Chariot.

Because this story is not over.

Over time, as erosion steadily ate away the finger of land jutting into the Chukchi Sea, the old town had to be abandoned. This fall, the entire area was inundated with water when high winds and hurricane force gusts pushed sea water over the rock sea wall protecting the north side of the point.

Although Teller lost his bid to detonate the world’s most destructive arms, in what feels like a tit-for-tat payback, under his direction, in secret, another group of engineers and military personnel were dispatched to the Project Chariot site. This time, they spread radioactive waste on the ground and in the stream. And they buried something there. Something in large, sealed drums.

To this day, the United States government has refused to divulge what was buried.

Since that time, the incidence of cancer has been higher than the national norm among the people of Point Hope. Higher than it should be, even taking into consideration other factors. These are some of the best people we’ve ever had the honor to be associated with. Kind, generous, resourceful, resilient, tough. Their government owes them answers.

Tell-tale tracks leave evidence that an Arctic fox was patrolling Old Tikigaq just before we hiked out. These whale bone jaws located near the airstrip a mile and a half from town welcome visitors to Point Hope. The area around Point Hope is one of the oldest continuously inhabited places in the Americas – maybe the oldest. While many Inupiat (Eskimo) cultures were nomadic, here the animals came to the people. The point of Point Hope formerly extended far to the west out into the Chukchi sea, bringing the land in close proximity to migratory paths of seals, whales, walruses, char, salmon and other fish. Two impressive capes, Thompson to the south, Lisburne to the north, are home to tens of thousands of sea birds. To the east, Point Hope is situated near the migratory route of thousands of caribou. The sea and the land are the garden that has sustained people here for thousands of years.

For more about Project Chariot, see the book The Firecracker Boys by Dan O’Neill. And although it is difficult to obtain a copy, there is an excellent, 73-minute documentary film titled Project Chariot, copyrighted 2013 NSBSD & Naninaaq Productions: UNCIVILIZED FILMS.

Wind and cold sculpted this mixture of sea spray and snow into a delicate arch. The sea ice has been late in coming to the Chukchi Sea this year. This photo was taken at 3:00 p.m. with the winter sun already skimming low on the horizon. Our month of day-long darkness will begin December 6.

The thick, slushy sea ice hisses and softly moans as it moves with the current past ice already frozen fast to shore. The hissing is vaguely reminiscent of a soft autumn breeze filtering through the dry leaves of oaks and maples in my native Pennsylvania. The moans sound like the muted voices of whales deep below the sea. All else is still, the ice stretching out as far as one can see. There is no wind, and there is no other sound.

This sea jelly, entombed in shore ice, is about the size of a polar bear’s paw.

We searched for signs of life, perhaps a seal out on the ice or a snowy owl coursing the shoreline, or even the tracks of an Arctic fox. There is nothing, just the steady hiss of the ice as it flows before us. We walk along the pebbled beach for maybe a mile and finally spot a small group of ravens. Tough birds, making a living up here during the winter.

If you look closely among the rocks along the Point Hope Beach, it’s common to find jade. Less common are fragments of mastodon tusks.

Thick ice prevents the shore from eroding during winter storms. Polar bears depend on the ice to hunt seals. Things are changing up here. The ice seems to be coming later, and there is less of it. Red foxes are becoming more common, pushing out their smaller Arctic cousins. Once winter truly locks up the sea and the sun sinks below the horizon, there is no place on earth that is quieter. It is cold and stark but beautiful.

We don’t always take our big cameras along on walks. Today we relied on “Little Blue,” our Cannon PowerShot D10, our trusty point and shoot.

Looking almost like exquisite mounts in a museum diorama, these Willow ptarmigan (Lagopus lagopus) proved to be quite approachable. While hiking on the tundra near Point Hope in September we came across two coveys totaling about 20 birds.

Nipped with frost, these cloudberries tasted like sorbet and were no doubt what had drawn the ptarmigan.

Barbra cautiously approached the birds as I lay on my stomach, inching through the boggy terrain, shooting, hoping a few shots might come out.

The plumage of these fall birds is in transition from the mottled browns and reds of summer to the snow white of winter. These are the same species as the red grouse of Scotland.

Barbra crouches and stalks closer to the birds. Note the densely feathered legs. The Latin lagopus translates to “hare foot” for the resemblance of ptarmigans’ feather-covered legs and feet to those of snowshoe hares.

There’s always evidence of a rich ecosystem on the Arctic tundra. Caribou antlers, bird nests, animal burrows and an amazing array of plants are part of our walks.

Brown bears (grizzlies) are common visitors to the beaches and tundra near Point Hope. We found a set of fresh tracks along the shores of an inlet off the Chukchi Sea not far from where we encountered the ptarmigan. Red foxes, Arctic foxes, Arctic ground squirrels, weasels and caribou are frequently seen mammals. Wolves and musk oxen are less common, but also figure in the mix. In the foothills and mountains east of Point Hope there are wolverines and at higher elevations, Dall sheep. Rarely, moose are seen in the scrub willows along the nearby Kukpuk River, and during the winter months polar bears show up both on the sea ice and on land.

During the fall migration, snow geese are fairly common. (Above and below)

Brandt, Canada geese, and a wide variety of ducks and shore birds are also common.

When the ptarmigan finally had enough of us, they glided off a few yards, regrouped and resumed feeding. At that point we turned for home.

A handful of frozen sweetness for the road.

A pair of sandhill cranes lifts off above the last of the cotton grass on the tundra near Point Hope.

Quality Madagascar vanilla beans, bourbon in one bottle and vodka in the other, and the experiment begins. If all goes well, in six months we’ll have two excellent bottles of double-strength vanilla extract for our Christmas pies and confections.

Even when perfectly good store-bought products are available, we are fascinated by how various foods are actually made. For excellent vanilla extract, we know of no better than Penzeys Spices double strength. But we wanted to give making our own a go.

We purchased our Madagascar vanilla beans from Penzeys. For the bourbon and vodka, we went with two well-known makers – a bourbon we enjoy sipping and a vodka that’s fine in our bloody Mary’s.

There’s really nothing to creating your own vanilla extract. We had 15 long beans which we cut in half, split down the middle, and placed in old-fashioned bottles with tight seals.

Whether the subject is sherry for cooking or bourbon for vanilla extract, an oft-repeated axiom is “Don’t use anything you wouldn’t drink.” That’s good advice, on par with adding seasonings “to taste” in recipes. On one hand, this isn’t the place to use the finest bourbon one might drink; on the other hand, in our own experience we noticed a marked improvement in our sauces and sautés when we moved away from lower end sherries and upgraded to more drinkable varieties.

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Once the vanilla beans and alcohol have been combined and sealed tight, it’s helpful to give the bottle a gentle shake from time to time to ensure mixing and full extraction. For the richest, most flavorful extract, allow six months to go by before opening.

Wrapping up another year in the Arctic before we go to our summer home in Seward, these caramel-topped applesauce cookies were a terrific way to work through the last of our supply of applesauce.

A few lonely jars, bottles and boxes remain atop the cabinetry that lines the walls off our kitchen. Over five meters (sixteen-and-a-half feet) of uninterrupted shelf space that in August was packed tight to the ceiling with everything from chocolate to olives to nuts to jarred jalapenos is now mostly space. The remaining jars of salsa, soy sauce, sun dried tomatoes, Cholula and assorted other items stand like lonely sentinels overlooking our kitchen. It is the same throughout our house as freezers and pantries that had once been packed and piled with nine months worth of food are now nearly empty. And while our spice racks look full, it’s a deception. Many of the bottles are empty or nearly so. Our bulk order for next year went in to Penzeys Spices last week.

Applesauce is a healthful moistening agent in a number of baking recipes. It’s also terrific in oatmeal, as a blintz topping and in pancake batter, and makes for a light snack on its own. When we lived within driving distance of Northern California’s Apple Hill and the numerous orchards there, we made our own applesauce. Up here, we annually purchase a couple of cases of Tree Top Organic from Costco. The cookies in this recipe feature the fall flavor of applesauce in a light, soft cookie. The crunchy carmel-flavored topping adds another layer of sweetness and texture.

Applesauce Caramel Cookies

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground mace

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

2 eggs

1 cup applesauce

caramel topping (see below)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 F.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and mace. Set aside.

Not your everyday ingredient, beluga whale has a firm, slightly crunchy texture and delicious flavor making it a perfect ingredient in traditional seafood chowders.

When a friend who is on a whaling crew recently offered us a few pounds of fresh beluga, we jumped at the opportunity to work with what for us is a new ingredient. The beluga chowders we’d sampled till this point had all started with beluga being added to canned clam chowder. We couldn’t wait to try beluga with our own recipe. The result was a rich, creamy, flavorful chowder.

We view all seafood through the lens of sustainability. Although commercial whaling and environmental factors have endangered a few of the world’s 29 separate beluga populations, in Arctic Alaska’s Chukchi Sea the species is abundant and appears to be unaffected by the relatively few numbers harvested for subsistence by Inupiat hunters. Typical belugas range in size from about 10 to 18 feet long and weigh between half a ton and two tons. Salmon and cod are among their preferred prey, but they feed opportunistically on a long list of other sea creatures. Interestingly, beluga’s closest relatives are narwhales.

Beluga soups and chowders are very popular among Eskimos. The skin and a little bit of the attached blubber is cut into slices about 1/16 – 1/4 inch thick (.25 – .5 cm) and about 1/2 – 1 inch in width and length. We cut ours thin – about 1/6 inch. Chunks this size become tender after about 10 minutes of simmering, with the skin retaining just the right amount of subtle crunch to it – a bit like conch or whelk. Using our favorite clam chowder recipe as a base, our beluga chowder had guests mopping their bowls with fresh-baked bread and asking for more. See recipe below.

Sweet corn, potatoes, bacon, butter, olive oil, sautéed onions, garlic, salt and pepper are a great base for all kinds of seafood chowder recipes. After that, whether the featured ingredient is razor clams, beluga whale or the assorted catch of the day is up to you. A little tarragon is nice, too.

Place sliced beluga in a pot. Add just enough water or clam juice to cover. Add a little salt. Over high heat, bring to a boil then reduce to simmer. Cook till beluga is tender (skin is easily pierced by a fork) but still a bit crunchy. About 10 minutes. Use a colander and a bowl to drain water, but keep water. Set beluga aside.

Fry bacon pieces till tender. Do not crisp. Drain the grease and set bacon aside.

Wash potatoes and remove any eyes, but do not remove the skins. Cut into ½ inch cubes and place in a large bowl. Cover with cold water, rinse and drain.

Return water used for cooking beluga to pot. Add potatoes. If necessary, add additional water or clam juice to cover potatoes. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat and simmer till potatoes are tender.

Meanwhile, place olive oil in a large skillet and heat over medium heat. Add onions, flour and seasoning (optional). Reduce heat and stir frequently for about five minutes until onions begin to turn translucent. Add garlic and bacon and stir again, cooking for about 1 minute.

Add onion mixture, milk, cream, beluga, cream, salt and pepper to potatoes and water. Heat thoroughly, but do not boil.

Sea ice fascinates us. Our village can be seen in the upper left of this photo. At the time of the photo, north winds had blown much of the ice away from the land. The “sticky ice,” the ice which clings to the shore, can usually be relied on to be safe to walk on. Even this sticky ice is subject to the whim of Mother Nature’s strong winds and current.

Piles of ice form along pressure points of the frozen surface of the sea. There are many histories of boats navigating too late in the season and becoming stranded or crushed between these pressure points.

Recently, wind from the south has closed this lead – the open water to the right. The view from our village today is solid ice as far as the eye can see. The villagers are readying their seal skin boats to go whaling. Soon the bowhead migration will begin. When the north wind blows open a lead, the whaling crews of Tikigaq will patrol the open water in hopes of catching animals that are in their Spring migrations. These whales make up a critical part of the subsistence catch in this Inupiat village.

I’ve recently been reading the book The Firecracker Boys. This true story is about a crazy post WWII idea some engineers and scientists had for using a nuclear bomb to blast a harbor between the peak in the center of this photo and the ridge on the left. This is about 25 miles east of Point Hope. The proposed H-bomb was to be 163 times the strength of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima. Scientists and engineers promised to sculpt the land based on human requirements. It was part marketing (using bombs for good) and part wild scientific experimentation. It’s a shocking and crazy true story!

Nose pressed to glass, I peered out from the bush plane window as we lifted straight up, like a helicopter, in the 40 m.p.h. north wind. It seemed scary on the ground. With gusts well above 40 m.p.h., the plane arrived, landed on the airstrip and never turned into the usual parking area. I fought my way toward the plane, slipping along the airstrip as if being pushed down by a strong arm. Once in the plane, I felt calm and safe with skilled bush pilots at the controls.

From the air, the village looks like a patchwork quilt as rooftops peak above a blanket of snow. If the snow and ice were sand, Point Hope could be any beachfront real estate in the world!